Celebrity wines, celebrity wines and again celebrity wines. When you step into Systembolaget, it is swarming with bottles with celebrities’ faces on them. And it doesn’t stay on the shelves for long. The celebrity wines are a sales success.
The professor and the author Leif GW Persson has long dominated the Swedish celebrity wine industry, with almost 2.1 million liters of wines sold in 2023. Other Swedish celebrities with wines are the former Idoljury member Laila Baggethe artist Måns Zelmerlöwthe television profile Ernst Kirchsteiger.
The celebrity wine king Leif GW Persson. Photo: Maja Suslin/TT
The list of celebrities with drinks for sale is long: the artists Miss Li, Lena Philipson and Jill Johnson has sells all pressed grapes. Also Magnus Carlsson, Per Gessle, Carolina Gynning and the detective story writer Jens Lapidus.
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The wine tasting
In the latest episode of the podcast The ingredients they hold a wine tasting together with acclaimed sommeliers Niklas Ödman. Six different red wines, all from Swedish celebrities are blind tested and rated.
All wines were assessed on a scale of 1 to 5 in the various categories: Aroma, taste and overall quality. In total, a wine could receive a total of 60 points from the compilation between the four members of the podcast. Those who judge the wines together with the sommelier are the chef Mikael Einarssonthe restaurateur Jesper Kvarnefält and Philip DeGiorgiobut all the way up to the top rating didn’t quite find all the wines.
– When you have a wine tasting at home, I always think that it should be tested blind (meaning that you don’t know what the bottle looks like and what it is you’re drinking). Then the mind is more open. Otherwise, it becomes what we in the industry call: “label on the table”. Then you may judge the wine based on prejudices: the country, the label or the price, before you have tasted, says sommelier Niklas Ödman in the podcast.
Here are the wines the podcast tests. Photo: The ingredients
Here are the best and worst celebrity wines
Former Idol jury member and radio talker Laila Bagge’s red wine Ruby Zin was not at all to the podcast’s members’ liking. One wine that did, however, was TV profile Ernst Krichsteiger’s red from Italy, Ernst Utvalda from Tuscany, that wine swept the course with its opponents and claimed first place.
– I couldn’t drink this, this was really nothing for me, says restaurateur Jesper Kvarnefält in the podcast Ingredienserna about Laila Bagge’s Ruby Zin.
The popular TV profile Ernst Kirchsteiger’s wine clear number one. Photo: Henrik Montgomery/TTHere is the full list and rating
1. Ernst Kirchsteiger, Ernst Selected from Tuscany. Rating from the podcast: 37.5 out of 60.
2. Jill JohnsonNashville Stories. 28 out of 60.
3. Leif GW PerssonGW’s Red. 25 out of 60.
4. Lena PhilipsonMonastrell PH Style. 20.5 out of 60.
5. Leif MannerströmLeif Mannerström CdR. 20 out of 60.
6. Laila BaggeRuby Zin. 17 out of 60.
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Here you can listen to the entire wine tasting in the “Ingredientserna” podcast
The “Ingredients” podcast releases a new episode every Thursday and you not only get wine tips and words about Swedish celebrity wines, but also other good tricks and tricks to become a better home cook. In addition, they tell you which restaurants you should eat when you are in different cities.
To get more tips and tricks in the kitchen, you can subscribe to the podcast here.